In general, a vehicle is formed in the shape of a white body (i.e., body in white, BIW) through a process of assembling various product panels produced in a vehicle body subprocess.
The vehicle body is formed of a floor panel that supports a driving portion such as an engine, an axle, a seat, and the like from a lower portion of a frame, opposite side panels that respectively form a left side and a right side of the frame, a roof panel that forms an upper surface of the frame, and a plurality of parts such as a cowl panel, a roof rail, a package tray, and a back panel. Assembly of vehicle parts is performed through a main buck process (also referred to as a body build-up process in the relevant field).
In the main buck process, the back panel is bonded to the floor panel through the vehicle body assembling system, and then the opposite side panels, the cowl panel, the roof rail, the package tray, and the roof panel are assembled by welding.
For example, the vehicle body assembling system controls the side panels through a side hanger and a side gate, sets the side panel in the floor panel, sets the cowl panel, the roof rail, and the package tray in the side panel, and then welds a bonding portion of the parts through a welding robot.
A vehicle body assembling system according to a conventional art has a rotation index (also referred to as a 4-sided rotator in the relevant field) that installs a vehicle-specific side gate in each of four sides. The 4-side rotation index rotates while controlling the vehicle-specific side panel through each of the side gates, and may place a side panel of the corresponding vehicle in the correct position at opposite sides of the floor panel.
Thus, while relevant parts (e.g., the cowl panel, the roof rail, and the package tray) are placed in the correct position in an upper end portion of the side panel that is controlled by the side gate of the 4-side rotation index, the upper end portion of the side panel, the relevant parts, a lower end portion of the side panel, and the floor panel may be welded using the welding robot in the conventional art.
In addition, in the conventional art, the entire frame of the vehicle body can be controlled at once through the vehicle-specific side gate of the 4-rotation index, and therefore the entire vehicle body assembling system may be increased in weight and size.
Further, since the vehicle-specific side gate is installed at each side of the 4-side rotation index in the conventional art, five or more different types of vehicle bodies cannot be assembled, and heavy and large-scale equipment needs to be additionally installed to assemble five or more different types of vehicle bodies.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the disclosure and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention, and therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.